10 Ingredients For Non-Miserable Vacations
Published February 20, 2023 · 16:10 · 195,395 views
About This Video
Field-tested on our first family vacation ever: a month-long overland trip to Mexico. It took Van four years to save for it. The ingredients are practical (drive instead of fly coach, travel off-season, National Parks like White Sands, electric bicycles, separate hotel rooms if you have kids) but the structure reveals a philosophy of travel built on one premise: comfort is the enemy of experience.
The final ingredient (go to a scary but cheap place) is where Van puts his own advice under pressure. He made a mistake on this trip. Drove past Pátzcuaro because he was cranky and hungry, ended up in Nueva Italia de Ruiz, where two men with guns in a Mazda pulled them over on the highway. He got them out of it with a pathetic amount of money. The experience was traumatic. He includes it: the mistake, the fear, the recovery at an all-inclusive in Ixtapa, our son riding the water slide 84 times in one day. When friends ask how Mexico was, he says it was perfect and means it. The danger is the price of admission. Brave people are generally fun.
Transcript
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in the description of course questions every couple years there's enough rain for this Creek to flow [Applause]
time to go to Mexico we're really doing it this just like winging it we're kind of like winging it
but not winging it if you must fly coach drive when you fly coach you begin your trip with misery at the airport and you end your trip with misery at the airport
and a business class and a first class ticket for a big enough family will pay for a very long Overland trip a car is a
storage facility and a mini home on Wheels you can pull over for fun and stupid stuff
because you're on vacation [Music] [Applause] one month take at least one month for your vacation like everything else it's much easier if
you're single of course and this sounds like a rich guy thing but I did a four
month trip in 2014 2015. I was paying a bronx Art Studio rent and I was paying a
Manhattan apartment rent and including both rents the entire four-month trip
cost me thirty thousand dollars seventy five hundred dollars a month a lot of you are choosing careers choose
seasonal work I've met gardeners and greenskeepers who take off six months every year to go surfing teachers have
two months off or maybe you can work holidays and save up a month's vacation if you have a month to get somewhere and
back you can drive two hours or so per day and go out of your way for Extraordinary places we drove two hours
out of our way to go to White Sands National park in New Mexico and it gave us really great enthusiastic energy for
the long drive to Fort Davis Texas that day thank you
[Music] oh my goodness wow look at this we got our own little section splurge by Splurge I just mean live a little don't count your pennies don't do everything on budget try to have a
attitude about cost again this sounds like a rich guy thing but I've seen what you Americans Drive I've seen
your expensive cars and your expensive clothes and your expensive sneakers drive an old Toyota and save your money
for Extraordinary experiences I think the magic number is maybe 10 grand a month
for a month's vacation maybe a little more it took me four years to save up for this trip this was our first family
vacation ever and um I mean we spent a bit more than 10 grand but not exceedingly more than 10
grand travel during the low season we left for this trip on January 3rd and returned on February 6th everybody had already traveled during the holiday break we had
everything practically to ourselves we barely planned and made day-to-day reservations for places to stay there
were plenty of vacancies there was no crowds really and hotels are cheaper on the off season
in Lazaro Cardenas Mexico we had a water park basically to ourselves all to ourselves
on a Saturday on Saturday January 28th foreign [Music] the best week to visit Yellowstone which we didn't go to on this trip but the best week to visit Yellowstone I have found is the first week in May nobody's
there and it's when all the little baby animals have been born and you get to see little tiny baby buffaloes which
brings us to American National Parks go see them we
went to one on the way to Mexico the best ones are out west California and
Utah are the best bang for your buck California and Utah each state has a lot of national parks and the drives to each
are pretty spectacular can get an annual pass for a hundred and something bucks and it's good for whoever's in the car
with you you'll find like once you start going and getting in the habit of going to National Parks they just become a
part of your vacation vocabulary and you'll just start going to more and more and they really do they do something to
you and they make you really really love America some of them will move you to tears
[Music] yeah I feel like I'm riding like a four pound bite yeah push the button on your right and it should make you go
really fast bicycles especially electric bicycles you can rent bicycles just about anywhere or you can pack your own God forbid something happens to your car and
you gotta get it fixed if you have bicycles with you you can still get around the town where your car is being fixed
good Rack you're going to be unloading and loading this thing a lot get the convenient good rack the one I got is a
cuat and it's for 120 pounds of bicycles I had to cut the fenders off of our van moves because they wouldn't fit on the
rack with fenders on them so I cut the front of the fenders off of them built a little plywood rack for X's bike
electric bikes in particular open up the adventures wider you can just cover so much ground
and we found once you're on the bikes to let the kid lead or at least let him think he's leading
[Music] I explained to my son this is not a dump nor is it a this is a modest Hotel technically a motel modest Hotel stay one night maybe two in a modest
Hotel they can be gross I'm not sure how many stars this hotel has but it's definitely not five in order to go to
number two in the toilet you have to pre-load using the garbage can go and you have to according to the expert
you have to wipe your butt in the shower they can be a little gross but there's something kind of fun about it and
modest hotels make you really appreciate nice hotels
oh it feels like this isn't it missing a piece missing the seat part hotel with two
rooms if you have kids do everyone a favor especially the parents and get them their own room
[Music] maybe one or two nights every week of your vacation at least once during your vacation stay in a nice hotel or a Swank Airbnb I
ain't a rich guy but I've done uh rich guy things on other people's dimes the swankiest hotels I've ever stayed in are
the the Park Hyatt Tokyo the one from Lost in Translation the Four Seasons Santa Barbara some place in San maritz
Switzerland and the hotel cost in Paris I am not talking about those those hotels I'm not talking about
thousand dollars plus per night hotels I'm talking about nice hotels under 500 bones
three hundred five hundred dollars when we settled in Mexico for two weeks
we rented an incredible Airbnb in this little surf town and the cost was about
the same as the hole in San Antonio [Music] but that's because the incredible Airbnb was in Mexico and folks are a bit scared
to visit Mexico which keeps the prices low let's brings us to our final ingredient and the final ingredient to
having a non-miserable vacation go to a scary but cheap place
so this is the dream driving on the beach it's hard to articulate the exact effect
that Mexico has on me and now on my family I can't really put my finger on what it is
um I usually just say It's Magic it feels magic it's little things we saw whales while we were getting ice cream one night
there we go you see him yep I just got it there you go
all right do you see him Bud yeah mob zombies right there
I've never seen a crocodile in the wild that thing is scary looking but but
there are actual no dangers that you absolutely must respect
it's sort of like riding a motorcycle though Mexico is not remotely as dangerous as riding a motorcycle but
there are some certain fundamental um rules that you have to follow for yourself you never ride a motorcycle without a helmet and you never drive in
Mexico at night um avoid certain places don't mess around with drugs or anything illegal
keep a low profile Etc this was my fifth Overland trip in Mexico I had never been the victim of a crime even when I was down there for four months I don't
remember ever hearing a firsthand account of someone being a victim of a crime only oh I know a guy and he told
me blah blah blah and on this trip with my family I made a mistake
careless Reckless and ignorant mistake Isabelle said the folks in San Miguel
told her we should say in Pat's quarro we drove into Pat's Cuero it was crowded lots of traffic I didn't see a
convenient place to park the truck I was hungry I was cranky so I said let's drive further get a
couple hours south closer to the beach where we're eventually going to stay and we'll just stay at the halfway point in
this town called Nueva Italia de Ruiz and I thought we were supposed to say in
Pat's quarro because it was cute but we were supposed to stay in Pat's quarro because it was safe
so I had a temper tantrum uh drove us a couple hours south
and we stayed in this dump in Nueva Italia de Ruiz the next morning we absolutely needed diesel we were out of
diesel I filled up the tank in Nueva Italia de Ruiz got a couple miles outside of town
two men pulled up next to us on the highway they were in a little Mazda I was in a Land Cruiser I could see into the driver's seat in the passenger seat
they had guns in their hands they pulled us over to the side of the road but they were not cops
um I got us out of it by giving them money it was a pathetic amount of money
a pathetic tiny amount of money but the experience was traumatic it was it was traumatic it was
terrifying um I'll tell the whole story in a subsequent episode that's coming up but that's the gist of the story I made a
terrible mistake not saying it was my fault those guys but I made a stupid mistake because I was being a baby
and that was about the halfway point of the trip so what do you do do you drive to the nearest airport and fly the wife and kid
home which I definitely we as a family thought about
[Music] those guys them so we're staying in this place to uh recover from the trauma of being robbed at gunpoint
we drove to an all-inclusive resort in a little town called Ixtapa which is basically a fortress Beach town it's
like Fort Lauderdale something super secure look a falcon left
[Music] beautiful [Music] stayed in a hotel on the beach with a lot of families and a little water park for the kids X rode the water slide 84 times in one day which took him four
hours and we booked an Airbnb in a little Paradise down the road and when
friends ask me how was Mexico I say it was perfect
and I mean it it's almost like the danger is the price of admission it's like part of what
makes Mexico so wonderful is that you've got to be a little bit Brave there's a there's a bravery requirement and brave people are generally fun thank you patrons for making this trip possible
Products & Tools Mentioned
- Toyota Land Cruiser essential
- VanMoof (electric bikes) uses
- Cuat (bike rack) uses